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[28 July 1835]. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett to Boyd, Hugh Stuart.

[28 July 1835]. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett to Boyd, Hugh Stuart.

Sidmouth.
Tuesday. [28 July 1835]
My dear Mr Boyd,
I meant to have written to you very long ago,—but when I think of writing to you, I always think—‘perhaps I had better for his own sake, be silent a little longer.’ Now however—before I am quite an infidel, which you apprehend as the awful & somewhat necessary consequence of my reading Collins’s treatise,—I will write to you; but, not to enter upon any controversy upon Calvinism. I think it is better not to controvert & dispute about it. If you meet with no difficulty on the subject, & run with your thoughts, with the multitude of your thoughts, against no hard corners, μακαριος! ‘happy are you’!—— And if, on my humbler part, I am content, amid the difficulties visible to my eyes, to sit down very stilly & try to hold fast by the right hand of Jesus without prying too closely into the way of his footsteps, μακαρια! happy am I. Pray for me, dear friend,—that so it may be. I do assure you that I did not read Collins with any expectation, any unholy expectation, of finding within him interpretations of Scripture. You know, I like to read everything: a liking which may be dangerous or at least unprofitable; but not indicative, in this particular instance, of the particular evil apprehended by you! I have been reading besides, Lord Brougham’s Natural Theology,—and have shaken my head over it, altho’ critics far taller than I am, have nodded theirs. It seems to me to have its most valuable parts in its notes,—in the observations there upon Hume’s philosophy. By the way, I ought not to presume to say a word about Hume’s philosophy to you,—having a very

Sidmouth.
Tuesday. [28 July 1835]
My dear Mr Boyd,
I meant to have written to you very long ago,—but when I think of writing to you, I always think—‘perhaps I had better for his own sake, be silent a little longer.’ Now however—before I am quite an infidel, which you apprehend as the awful & somewhat necessary consequence of my reading Collins’s treatise,—I will write to you; but, not to enter upon any controversy upon Calvinism. I think it is better not to controvert & dispute about it. If you meet with no difficulty on the subject, & run with your thoughts, with the multitude of your thoughts, against no hard corners, μακαριος! ‘happy are you’!—— And if, on my humbler part, I am content, amid the difficulties visible to my eyes, to sit down very stilly & try to hold fast by the right hand of Jesus without prying too closely into the way of his footsteps, μακαρια! happy am I. Pray for me, dear friend,—that so it may be. I do assure you that I did not read Collins with any expectation, any unholy expectation, of finding within him interpretations of Scripture. You know, I like to read everything: a liking which may be dangerous or at least unprofitable; but not indicative, in this particular instance, of the particular evil apprehended by you! I have been reading besides, Lord Brougham’s Natural Theology,—and have shaken my head over it, altho’ critics far taller than I am, have nodded theirs. It seems to me to have its most valuable parts in its notes,—in the observations there upon Hume’s philosophy. By the way, I ought not to presume to say a word about Hume’s philosophy to you,—having a very